1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a device for controlling an installation comprising means for monitoring and/or commanding the operation of said installation, and a central unit connected to said means for monitoring and/or commanding the operation for reading, sending and/or processing data concerning the operation of the installation.
2. Description of the Related Art
Control devices are known for monitoring and commanding the operation of antonomous installations such as for example nitrogen generators equipped with a safety liquid nitrogen tank.
Such a known device comprising, on one hand, means for measuring parameters relating to the operation of the installation, such as for example a level sensor or a device for monitoring the generator, and commanding means for acting on the operation of the installation as a function of the results of the measurement and, on the other hand programmed automaton connected to each of said measuring and commanding means.
The automaton comprises communication means permitting for example the transmission of a warning signal to a remote monitoring centre of a supplier for initiating the replenishing of the tank or for warning the supplier of a disfunction of the generator he put at the disposal of his client.
For this purpose, the automaton is programmed in such manner that it executes a certain number of tasks for reading, sending and/or processing data relating to the operation of the installation.
Such tasks comprises for example the reading of measurement values delivered by the sensors, the comparison of the measured values with predefined thresholds for determining the alarms to be set off or the initiation of alarm procedures consisting in transmitting the alarms to a remote monitoring centre of the supplier.
These known control devices have the drawback that each automaton is specifically adapted to a particular installation. This adaptation of the automaton concerns both its electric and/or electronic structure and the tasks to execute so that two automatons for controlling the operation of two installations of different types cannot be interchanged.
Consequently, a supplier who puts at the disposal of his clients installations of different types each one of which requires a specifically adapted control device, must invest a considerable amount of money for the development and manufacture of the installations.
Further, once it is installed, such a known control device lacks flexibility in use since, in order to add later measuring sensors and/or commanding transducers in order to refine the control of the installation or monitor a new module subsequently integrated in the installation, it is usually necessary to replace the automaton of the device by another.